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Ball (Excerpt)
In the title story of Tara Ison's new collection, BALL, a woman's newfound and thrilling sex life is threatened by her obsessive cockapoo. In his introduction, Rick Moody writes that "Ball" "is a truly outrageous story about contemporary relationships, sex, and dog ownership. It is about the way these things are very similar. And it is not breezy and light about sex and dog ownership, it is honest and tragicomic and astringent and provocative."
About the Author: Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List, A Child out of Alcatraz, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway, featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine and the essay collection, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies. Her short fiction, essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve.com, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly, The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the cult-hit movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead.
About the Guest Editor: Rick Moody is the author of four previous novels: The Four Fingers of Death, Purple America, The Ice Storm, and Garden State, as well as an award-winning memoir and multiple collections of short fiction. His latest novel, Hotels of North America is out this November from Little, Brown and Company. Moody is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and his work has been anthologized in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Moody lives in Brooklyn, New York.
About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.
About the Author: Tara Ison is the author of the novels The List, A Child out of Alcatraz, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway, featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine and the essay collection, Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies. Her short fiction, essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Nerve.com, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, PMS: poemmemoirstory, Publishers Weekly, The Week, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the cult-hit movie Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead.
About the Guest Editor: Rick Moody is the author of four previous novels: The Four Fingers of Death, Purple America, The Ice Storm, and Garden State, as well as an award-winning memoir and multiple collections of short fiction. His latest novel, Hotels of North America is out this November from Little, Brown and Company. Moody is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and his work has been anthologized in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Moody lives in Brooklyn, New York.
About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.
25 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 27, 2015
2 people want to read
About the author
Tara Ison
14 books65 followersTara Ison is the author of the short story collection BALL, the novels THE LIST, ROCKAWAY, and A CHILD OUT OF ALCATRAZ, a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards. Her essay collection REELING THROUGH LIFE was the winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Award for Creative Nonfiction.
Her novel of WWII Vichy France, AT THE HOUR BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF, will be published in February 2023.
Her short fiction, essays, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, BOMB, Salon, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, Black Clock, Publisher's Weekly, The Week magazine, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead.
She is the recipient of a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as multiple Yaddo fellowships and Pushcart Prize nominations, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award.
Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College. She has taught creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Goddard College, Antioch University Los Angeles, and UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program. She is currently Assistant Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University."
Her novel of WWII Vichy France, AT THE HOUR BETWEEN DOG AND WOLF, will be published in February 2023.
Her short fiction, essays, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, BOMB, Salon, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, Black Clock, Publisher's Weekly, The Week magazine, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies. She is also the co-writer of the movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead.
She is the recipient of a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as multiple Yaddo fellowships and Pushcart Prize nominations, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award.
Ison received her MFA in Fiction & Literature from Bennington College. She has taught creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Goddard College, Antioch University Los Angeles, and UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA in Creative Writing program. She is currently Assistant Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University."
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